Maniac (1934), Maniac (1980)

'Maniac' (1934)

Producer/director Dwain Esper was known as "The King of the Celluoid Gypsies" and had his hand in many of the best known explotation films of the 1930's, directing 'Sex Madness', 'The 7th Commandment', 'Narcotic', 'Marihuana' and 'How to Undress in Front of Your Husband'. Though he did not direct 'Reefer Madness' he for a time handled its distribution. Explotation films of this time side stepped production code approval and managed to justify there exhibation as being "eductional", tacking on explanatory title cards or brief lectures either on film or in person to "contextualize" the subject matter, which is code for provide an excuse for on screen depravaity.

'Maniac' perports to be an examination of mental illness but is really just a lose adaption of Edges Allen Poe's 'The Black Cat' penned by Esper's wife and frequent collaborator Hildagrde Stadie. It concerns a classicly mad scientist working on a way to bring people back from the dead, in the process he dies and has his identity assumed by an equally unstable assistant who happens to be a former vaudeville impersonator. The movie is extremely cheap, bad and non-sensical. Not enjoyably so I'm afraid, but at least it's only around 50 minutes. 

At one point in the film the two mads go to the mourge to steal a corpse, but the lady they fixate on is obviously still moving, the mad scientist states they can still save her life so they abduct her. But they went there for a corpse, if the doc is convinced he can bring the dead back why try to keep her from dying? Also why was she in the morgue to begin with if she were still alive? Someone is being extremely sloppy. *

'Maniac' (1980)

'Maniac' was made to take advtange of the 'slasher' movie craze which really hit its stride after the release of the original 'Halloween' in 1978, and would largely play its self out over the ensuing decade, only to approprately return from the dead in smaller bursts right up to the present.

Mostly unremarkable 'Maniac' managed to come out when demand for said product was high enough to earn it $10 million at the box office off a rougly $350,000 budget. 'Maniac' was directed by William Lustig, the nephew of former middleweight boxing champion Jack LaMotta, whose well regarded bio-pic 'Raging Bull' would come out that same year. Lustig had worked in film in various capacities before, including directing hard core pornography under the alias of "Billy Brag". Lustig brings a suitably seamy aesthetic to this film.

Frank Zito is an asspiring artist and big creepy slob with mommy and sex issues who starts killing women and the occasional associated male in the urban decay of New Yorks less then high class neighborhoods. He is surprisingly underplayed by Joe Spinell, a legit actor who had appered in two Godfather and two Rocky movies, in the latter as the low level crime figure who employs Stallon for muscle.

Spinal has a very effective early scene, played long for awkwardness, in which he hires a prostitue, takes her to seedy hotel, and she starts to take pitty on him when he can't get it up and then he strangles her. The rest of the film is less interesting and gets kind of repetitive. He eventually encounters a girl he is unable to take down in the form of former Bond girl and Hammer Horror veteran Carolin Munro. The ending, which goes for what can be read as either symbolic, supernatural or some hybrid, I did not care for. Notable for camo appernces by Gaylen Ross and Tom Savini who had appered together in 'Dawn of the Dead' a few years before, playing a couple whose first date ends very poorly. *1/2